A few days ago, I came across an interview published by BBC Worklife explaining how, after more than twenty years of intensive use, more and more users are posting less in public spaces on social media, preferring to move their exchanges to private or semi-private messaging services (Why did our friends stop posting on social media?). This reminded me of a post I wrote in 2013, at a time when it was still necessary to point out the difference between a network and a media (Social networks are not medias. And reciprocally). Twelve years later, this distinction remains relevant and the trend I mentioned at the time has grown due to factors that, while already at work at the time, did not have the impact they have today.
In short:
- Public use of social media is declining in favor of private messaging services, where exchanges are perceived as more authentic and secure.
- The distinction between networks (interaction between people) and media (dissemination to an audience) remains essential but is becoming increasingly blurred as platforms evolve.
- The rise of digital violence and the search for security and trust are driving users to migrate to protected spaces.
- The tone of posts has changed: personal marketing and “hard selling” have replaced constructive and nuanced exchanges.
- The confusion between network and media is leading to a decline in the quality of interactions, prompting users to turn to private spaces that are better suited to their relational needs.
Two radically different approaches
A network is first and foremosta space for interaction between identified individuals, where people communicate with those they know or are getting to know, with a view to exchange and reciprocity. A media outlet, on the other hand, relies on top-down communication to a large, often anonymous audience, with the goal no longer being to converse but to capture attention, spread a message, or generate feedback, whether in the form of audience numbers, recognition, notoriety, or customers. In a network, we share to build, strengthen, or leverage a relationship, whereas in a medium, we broadcast to reach an audience.
The problem arises when we hope to achieve the relational quality of the former by adopting the codes of the latter.
The shift to private spaces
What has changed over the past decade is that the “media” mindset has invaded the public spaces of networks, while the “network” mindset has migrated elsewhere. Conversations that used to take place in blog posts, Twitter threads, or LinkedIn comments now take place on WhatsApp, Telegram, or Messenger.
Tools originally designed for one-to-one communication now host groups of several hundred, sometimes several thousand members, and WhatsApp has even created a “Communities” feature that allows up to 100 groups to be grouped under the same banner. WhatsApp Channels, designed to follow sources or organizations, surpassed 500 million monthly active users within weeks of their launch (WhatsApp Channels surpasses 500 million monthly active users). More broadly, the app has over 2 billion monthly active users and handles over 100 billion messages exchanged worldwide every day. Suffice to say that these private spaces now carry as much weight as traditional public social networks (64 Intriguing WhatsApp Statistics You Must Know in 2024), at least in terms of interest and engagement.
Relational authenticity and social fatigue
In a private group, we don’t play for or with an algorithm. You talk to people you know, you exchange ideas in a shared context, you form a community in the true sense of the word (or at least you try to), you correct a point of view, and all this without wondering whether the conversation will be judged interesting by a machine or whether someone from nowhere will attack you for what you say, even though they sometimes know nothing about the subject.
This authenticity in relationships has indeed become rare in public spaces, where the logic of editorial performance, standardization of tone and format, the search for buzz, and the overexploitation of emotions dominate. More and more B2B professional communities prefer to form WhatsApp or Telegram groups rather than interact on LinkedIn, even in groups.
I even know people who have completely left LinkedIn to join a private community platform that they set up themselves, even if it means paying for a subscription out of their own pocket to guarantee total confidentiality and thus free speech in a trusting environment.
For years, I was amused by the term “social network”, pointing out that a network is social by definition. In fact, I was wrong: as the quality of content and interactions deteriorated, many so-called social networks ended up becoming anti-social, and not only because of their own doing, as their users contributed to creating a culture of mediocrity and sometimes violence that will ultimately seal their fate. There is a lot of talk about X, ex-Twitter, but make no mistake, LinkedIn is following exactly the same path.
Digital violence has changed the game
When I started blogging, and later using Twitter, there were only a few of us and we were breaking new ground (20 years of blogging: what it has been for, what I have learned, what has changed, what remains). We were able to experiment, discover together what could and couldn’t be said, adjust our tone and, above all, there was still what was known at the time as netiquette, an implicit set of rules of civility that allowed us to debate without tearing each other apart. Today, this word has almost disappeared from the digital vocabulary, even though it is probably more necessary than ever.
Back then, posting on a blog or social media was almost always professionally rewarding. Today, many people hesitate to express themselves for fear of triggering a flood of criticism or hate, with consequences for their private lives and careers. We had time to learn by doing, like a child learning to ride a bike with training wheels, whereas today newcomers are asked to jump straight onto a racing bike and ride successfully in front of a large, judgmental audience.
The renowned Pew Research Center estimated in 2021 that 41% of American adults had already been victims of online harassment (The State of Online Harassment). Reports from Amnesty International also show that Twitter remains particularly toxic for women, which illustrates why so many discussions are migrating to protected environments (As a company, Twitter is failing to respect women’s rights online). And while these figures date back to 2018, there is good reason to believe that the situation has worsened since then.
From social selling to hard selling
This change in “atmosphere” has also had an impact on the tone and nature of content. Where we used to exist through our ideas, we now exist through our navels: “me, my life, my journey, my trials, my revelations”. Personal marketing has replaced conversation, often in its crudest and least nuanced form, and social selling, which was supposed to be a subtle and respectful approach consisting of generating interest through the value of exchanges and naturally encouraging connection, has turned into aggressive, repetitive hard selling, where the relationship is secondary and the goal of immediate conversion takes precedence.
Increasingly blurred boundaries
LinkedIn, which started out as a professional network, has become a media outlet with standardized editorial codes and incentives to increase reach. Conversely, WhatsApp, which began as a simple messaging service, is becoming a large-scale private social network with communities, channels, and events.
But this blurring of categories does not change the essential: the quality of a network depends on the density and trust of the links that compose it, while a media logic, even disguised, remains unilateral.
Bottom line
Networks and media can coexist. You can publish publicly to initiate an exchange, then continue the discussion privately with those who really matter. But we must accept that the rules, codes, and skills are not the same, and that wanting to turn everyone into a media outlet without equipping or training them will inevitably lead to a decline in overall quality, a sort of “race to the bottom” that, far from bringing people together, will push everyone to seek out higher-quality and safer spaces. As Cory Doctorow pointed out in his theory of “enshittification”, which I have often mentioned when talking about Twitter in the past and LinkedIn today (My new Linkedin hygiene), the more a platform focuses on its economic interests, the more it degrades the user experience to the point of driving users away (An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw It Into Reverse). The current move towards private spaces is not a fad but a rational response to an environment that has become noisy, unstable and often toxic.
Image credit: Image generated by artificial intelligence via ChatGPT (OpenAI)
